Addendum
by Priestess of Dan
Summary: The stories of all who did not get their endings in the works of Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice to Persuasion.
1. Mary & Catherine

I do not own anything. It all belongs to the late, great Jane Austen.

First up, Pride and Prejudice: Mary and Catherine. Next is Caroline Bingley, and after that is the grand crossover of Georgiana Darcy and William Price.

Mary & Catherine

Nothing had been more shocking or delightful than, upon returning home from a lengthy visit to her sister Darcy, hearing from her father that it was good to have her back.

Twenty-four years in the world had allowed Miss Catherine Bennet to understand that she was not a favourite of her father. His two eldest, Mrs Bingley and Mrs Darcy, had long taken that place in his heart, and only their marriages persuaded him to seek the company of his two unmarried daughters. His new fondness for them only increased when Mary had become mistress of his home after his wife died, three years after his eldest daughters married.

It was well-known throughout Meryton that Mr Bennet depended on Miss Bennet and Miss Catherine Bennet now that he was utterly without alternative female companion. Without them he would never recall if he had an engagement to dine with Sir William Lucas or if he had recorded their expenses for the week, and it was true that they did a better job of managing him than their mother ever did. Mary always remembered the monetary and moral responsibilities he had forgotten, and Kitty could think of no higher pleasure than dining and dancing with their neighbours. It did not hurt that Mrs Bennet's attempts to manage Mr Bennet were only shouting at him and complaining of her nerves. – Mary and Kitty could do practically anything and still be the preferred sources of feminine influence.

To be depended upon was no mean state. Kitty enjoyed all the nuances of life as her father's primary caretaker, and Mary enjoyed being the mistress of her own home (and the master, at that). The younger Miss Bennet dutifully read Euripides aloud and played backgammon and quadrille with the greatest serenity. After a three months' visit in Derbyshire, she was slightly out of practice, but she threw herself back into her post in good spirits and with an affection embrace for both her father and Miss Bennet.

It was on the second day of her return home that Kitty realised that she had not asked her father and Mary about what had happened since she had left.

Mr Bennet grinned at her. "Are you certain you wish to know? It really is quite scandalous."

This was precisely the sort of news Kitty had been hoping for. Her desire for gossip had not dwindled since her younger sister had been involved in a shameful love affair and a hasty marriage, and that her father was willingly giving her the intelligence, without fear of her becoming influenced wrongly by it, only made the information all the sweeter.

"What has happened, Papa?"

He grinned at Mary, who was suddenly looking down at her embroidery as though it was a problem from Euclid and blushing, and said, "Your sister has found herself a suitor."

"Mary has a suitor!" she repeated. "Who is he? What is his fortune? Who are his people?"

"He is Stephen Higgins, and he is one of your Uncle Phillips's law clerks. He does not have a great deal of money, but I have no doubt of him being successful, with or without Mary. He is a steady man, and it would be sensible if your uncle bequeathed the practice upon whichever clerk married one of you, since he and your aunt never had any children."

Kitty nodded. This was true. But Mr Higgins's name sounded awfully familiar, and then she realised – "Is Mr Higgins not the clerk who kneels in church?"

"Ah," Mr Bennet said. He nodded. "He is."

She had not forgotten how her sister Mrs Wickham and her friends the Miss Harringtons had laughed at the clerk's religious devotion. She had joined them in their mockery at the time, but without Lydia she had not had the desire to return to any of the occupations she had once enjoyed with her sister and friends. It was a torment to imagine, though, what Mrs Wickham would say if she knew that her least favourite sister was an object of admiration to Mr Higgins.

"I'm pleased, of course," Kitty said. She looked closely at Mary's face and added, "if you are pleased. It would be no pleasure to me if you did not like the man, Mary."

Her sister blushed more fiercely at that. "I do. I do like him. He is everything I could have wished for."

"Then I am delighted," Kitty said. She turned to her father and said, "Mrs Currant will have to become accustomed to taking my orders, then. I have never been the mistress of my own home before."

Kitty had only seen one person as red as Mary was at that moment, and that was Mrs Darcy when her sister asked if it was as unpleasant as their mother said to share a bedroom with a gentleman. "I do not know – I cannot be certain that Mr Higgins will offer to me," she said. "Neither of us has much money, even with the two thousand pounds Uncle Phillips has offered each of us."

Both Mr Bennet and his younger daughter gave Mary a look of exasperation. Mr Higgins would be the worst sort of fool if he did not propose to a woman with three thousand pounds, especially one who could be invaluable as a means of obtaining Mr Phillips's practice. If Mary liked him, there was no impediment to their being married by December.

"When will I meet Mary's Mr Higgins?" Kitty asked.

"Undoubtedly, he will call tomorrow. He has been calling once every week, and his visits are the only time Mary can be persuaded to play the instrument again."

Miss Bennet had realised, after a few months without comparison to other Miss Bennets, that nobody enjoyed her performances on the pianoforte. For a time she had endeavoured to improve herself, but she had not practiced at all since her mother's death forced Mrs Bennet's responsibilities upon her thin shoulders. To be encouraged to play by Mr Higgins must be bliss for Mary, Kitty thought, and she smiled and joined her dear father in teasing Mary about what piece she would choose for her dearest Higgins.

The next afternoon Mr Higgins called, and Kitty was pleasantly surprised by him. He was not terribly handsome, like Mr Darcy, but he had a pleasantness of features comparable to Mr Bingley's. Mary's tastes did not run to the handsome, though, but to the morally sound. A man who kneeled in church and who dressed in a simple, Quaker-like manner would appeal to her strongly, and therefore Miss Bennet blushed and stuttered in Mr Higgins's presence.

"You are Miss Catherine Bennet, then," the man said upon being shown into the drawing-room. Mary and Kitty were there, darning, and Mary had already greeted him as warmly as her sensibilities would allow.

Kitty smiled. "I am."

He nodded. "Miss Bennet told me that you were visiting your sister Mrs Darcy in Derbyshire. How did you find the country?"

Miss Catherine Bennet was full of compliments for the countryside, the walks therein, and the people who populated the country. She was speaking of the Rev. Mr Francis Morland when she realised that not only Mary but her suitor were looking at her with odd, knowing looks.

She had been speaking of him quite often, she realised then. Her conversation on her first night after returning from Derbyshire had been full of the parson, a gentleman of thirty-one years of age and a handsome countenance not frequently found in parsons. He was clever and a great friend of Mr Darcy, so Kitty had often been in his company and found him pleasant.

"Is Mr Morland a well-spoken man?" Mr Higgins asked then, and Kitty thought it was a great kindness from him. "I have observed that well-spoken parsons are often the most respected amongst their flock."

"He is very well-spoken," Kitty said quietly.

The drawing-room was quiet till Biddy came with the tea, and then the clicking of the teaspoons was the only sound. Kitty was aware of Mr Higgins's frequent, significant looks towards Mary, and she stood once she had finished her first cup. "Papa will want to know that Mr Higgins is here, I know," she said. "Mary, we've been quite remiss in not informing him immediately. I will go now."

"But –" Mary began, knowing that Mrs Currant or one of the maids would have informed their father already. Then she realised her sister's intentions and blushed furiously, glaring under her eyelashes at Kitty.

The younger Miss Bennet smiled as she walked towards Mr Bennet's library. He was surprised to see her when she walked in without knocking, and he said, "By word, Kitty, have you abandoned Mary to ruin, or is Mr Higgins duller than I had thought?"

"Neither," she said gaily. "He is to propose at any moment. I can sense these things, you know."

"Can you?" her father asked, smiling.

"Yes. Did I not leave Elizabeth and Mr Darcy alone all those years ago, so he might propose?"

"You did." Her father sighed then. "It will be a quiet house," he said, "when I have no daughters left to fill it. I will have to invite Betsy and Jenny to make their home with me, will I not? I now know the proper way to raise my daughters and would do better for them than Wickham and Lydia could."

Kitty did not bother to protest his assumption that she would soon be married. If Mr Morland would but propose to her, she would be his bride before Mary became Mrs Higgins. "It would probably be best," she said. "You could invite Cousin Sophy to make her home with you, now that she is a widow."

"Frederick would not want to be separated from his sister," Mr Bennet said, "but I will undoubtedly be writing her the second you sail off to matrimonial happiness. I will have no female relations other than my niece on which to rely, after all."

His daughter said nothing in response to that, but she stood when Mr Higgins walked into the library in what could best be described as a nervous state. "Mr Bennet," he said in a tone unequal to the firm voice he had used when speaking with Mary, "may I speak with you in private?"

"Certainly," Mr Bennet said, grinning secretively to himself. He turned his grin to Kitty and said, "Kitty dear, would you mind joining Mary in the drawing-room? Mr Higgins would like to speak with me in private."

Kitty could not help a giggle, and she excused herself while pretending that it was a cough.

Mary was still sitting in the drawing-room, but now she was smiling softly out the window. She heard her sister approach and said, "Thank you, Kitty, for throwing aside the traditional mores of our society. I think this is the only time you will hear me say that."

"Undoubtedly," her sister said, and her heart swelled with thankfulness for their sisters' marriages. If she and Mary had not been thrown together by their absences, then they would not have become fond of each other. She sat down beside Mary on the sofa and took her hand in her own. "What is to become of me without you, Mary? Do not fill the room with platitudes about your being only a short walk from home. You and I both know that it will not be the same."

Mary held her hand more tightly and said, "We will manage, Kitty. Besides, you will undoubtedly be a parson's wife in Derbyshire soon enough, and then I will be able to complain that it is your marriage that will truly separate us."

"I will visit often, if I am married."

Her sister but smiled. "I will hold you to that promise," she said after a long silence.

**Endnotes:**

In 1818, the year this story takes place, Mary would be twenty-five and Kitty would be twenty-four. And, yes, I am ridiculously fond of Mary and Kitty, perhaps more so than they deserve. I can't help but think that a strange combination of them would create me, which is rather odd and sad, but I think that I'm managing well enough regardless.


	2. Caroline Bingley & Frederick Tilney

Chapter Two: Being an adventure in the life of Caroline Bingley, which doubles as a crossover with Northanger Abbey. As for any seeming inaccuracies in Caroline's character -- Do you really think that she would be as rude to her aunts, especially with Aunt Martha around, as she was to Elizabeth, who was lower than she was on the social scale?

Next time on Addendum: Anne de Bourgh & the Joys of Spinsterhood

Caroline

Miss Bingley had no deeper shame than the knowledge that she had been banished from her amiable brother's house. She had so long been the mistress of his home that she could not imagine the evils performed because of his infatuation with the penniless and unsophisticated Miss Bennet.

Now that he had married, he said that he had no need for her that was greater than the need that the aunts she had long disliked had. Aunt Martha and Aunt Bridget were the younger sisters of their father, both of whom had never married and who had lived off investing their inheritance from their brother in the four or five percents. Six hundred pounds, though only a pittance for two ladies of usual means, was a fortune when held by middle-aged women who did not like to entertain, to go out, or to indulge their nieces and nephews.

Aunt Bridget had once been engaged to the older brother of General Tilney, and he had offered her a place on his estate when poor Marshall Tilney had died of pneumonia. Aunt Martha, who had been an old hag at twenty-seven, had insisted on joining her at the cottage the general had resentfully provided for Miss Biddy Bingley. Aunt Martha and Aunt Bridget had therefore spent the last thirty years living in Gloucestershire, with the occasional society of the general and his children, if he or his family felt inclined.

A conversation upon arrival with Aunt Bridget revealed that the Rev. Mr Tilney was nearly always in the humour to see his aunts, but the Colonel had not come to see them since he had returned from London the week before. Caroline amused herself by saying that Colonel Tilney was a fool who did not know what he was about, and Aunt Bridget sighed and said what a handsome, good-humoured child little Frederick had been. He and his brother had been great favourites of hers when they were young, for they were so handsome and they had both been so like her Hal in looks, but the Colonel had disappointed her by becoming the sort of man she could not become fond of.

"He is very like his late father," she said. "Henry is so much more like his uncle. I am quite enamoured with him, and his wife laughs at me so beautifully! You should meet dear Catherine soon. Martha, will Caroline not be delighted with our Cathy?"

Aunt Martha obligingly said that she had never met anyone who did not like Mrs Tilney.

"Cathy is such a good-humoured, lovely woman. You ought to meet her soon, I think, for I would hate for you not to enjoy the society of people your age while you are here. Martha and I do not entertain often, but we often have Henry and Cathy over for tea or supper. They have eight handsome children, you know, and it has been said to me that they expect a ninth in the spring. Is that not a delightful number? Catherine is one of ten, did I mention? Yes, she has three elder brothers, three younger sisters, and three younger brothers. I do believe that I recommended her brother Frank to your brother's notice in case he had heard of an opening for a parson."

"I recall," Caroline said. "He recommended Mr Francis Morland to our friend Mr Darcy, and now he is the parson at Lambton in Derbyshire."

"Yes! I remember that now. How pleased Cathy had been with us! Do you not remember, Martha? She came into our little sitting-room, as pleased as Punch, and said, 'You dear creatures!' and then she said that it was because of us that her brother Frank was to be made the parson of a living in Derbyshire. What a pleasant little meal we had to celebrate! Henry had been as delighted, I remember. He said 'You clever creatures' to us, as though we were clever! He is such a droll man, Henry, and such a delightful nephew to have. I am delighted with him constantly."

"He is very good to us," Aunt Martha said coolly.

Aunt Bridget's effusions were necessarily quelled by this comment, and she only said, "We are so glad to have you here, Caroline. The maid is Sally, the cook is Dowell, and the footman is John."

* * *

The next morning, Aunt Bridget persuaded Caroline to come on her daily walk with her. "Mr Jameson – the apothecary – recommends that I walk every day that the weather is fine," she said. "Martha is supposed to join me, but she does not like to in the autumn and the winter. You had best bundle up, Caroline. You really are much too thin."

Caroline, who had tried to lose weight so she might please Mr Darcy and his strange tastes, could only grimace at her aunt's innocent remark. "Yes," she said. "I think that I might try to become healthier while here. I was much too busy while with Charles and Jane in London for the Little Season, I think."

Aunt Bridget nodded. "I remember London well enough to understand. I was constantly going from a soiree to a ball to a dress-fitting to a picnic. – I never had any time to think of my health. It is more peaceful in the countryside. Martha and I will have you back to your old strength in no time."

It was surprisingly Aunt Bridget's decision to walk on the path that led to Northanger Abbey. She had wanted to show her nieces and nephew the abbey for a long time, and Caroline's presence meant that she had only two more people to show it to now.

Caroline obligingly said that it was a nice old house, but she thought that it was rather old-fashioned and in need of improvement. Since she thought that her aunt would agree with her no matter what she said, it did not matter that she said her full opinion aloud. As predicted, Aunt Bridget said, "Yes, I agree with you. – It is unfortunate that Frederick has not been home often enough to put more attention into it."

"I will endeavour to, now, Madam," said an unfamiliar, male voice. Caroline turned to see a tall man of about forty years of age walking towards them. "Forgive me for overhearing, Miss Bridget, Madam, but I have found that the wind is carrying everybody's voices today."

"Oh, it is no matter," Aunt Bridget said. She smiled warmly. "I would have said the very same to your face, Frederick, and you know I would have!"

"Undoubtedly," he said. "Would you be kind enough to introduce me to your companion, Madam, or is it now the vogue to be rude and introduce yourself?"

"Oh, I am sorry! Frederick, this is my niece, Miss Bingley, who has come to stay with us at the cottage now that her brother does not need her services any longer, being recently married. My dear Caroline, this is Colonel Tilney."

Caroline curtseyed, and the Colonel bowed. "It is a pleasure to meet you," he said. "How do you find it here in Gloucestershire?"

"It is very pleasant here," she said politely. "My aunts have been very good to me."

"I can imagine no one treating you ill, Madam, so you must forgive me for thinking no better of either of those estimable ladies for such acts of kindness. Perhaps I know your brother's wife, or her people? What is her name?"

"It is Bennet, sir, but they are a family that has little influence and little wealth."

The Colonel frowned thoughtfully. "Is Bennet not the name of Mr Darcy's wife as well? I am certain of hearing it recently, and I know that it was somehow in connection with the Darcys. – I was speaking to two of my fellows at the time, Colonel Brandon and Colonel Fitzwilliam, and I believe that it was Colonel Fitzwilliam who said the name."

"It undoubtedly was. Mrs Darcy is Jane's younger sister."

"How odd that all people should be so connected!" Colonel Tilney said. "I remember hearing, three or four years ago, when visiting my mother's people in Scotland, that my cousin Edmund Bertram had married a Miss Price. This very December, I met a man by the name of Lieutenant William Price. After inquiring if he had any relation to my cousin's bride, he told me that he was the lady's elder brother."

Not to be undone, Caroline said, "I was in Scarborough not long ago with some friends, and there was a man there by the name of Knightley, who had come from Surrey, and I asked him if he had any relation to a friend of my brother named Mr John Knightley, who had come from the same country. Mr Knightley told me, in a tone of such surprise, that his brother's name was John and that he too was a barrister in town. Then we only needed to confirm the name of Mr Knightley's estate – Donwell Abbey –, and we were assured that they were brothers indeed."

"It is quite astonishing," the Colonel said. He turned his gaze to Aunt Bridget and said, "Madam, I will be honest with you. I had an intention in coming down here after spying you from the window. I wished to see if I might tempt your party to join my brother's family and me in a supper tomorrow. It will be very modest, I warn you, since I have no gentlewoman to organise my parties for me."

"We will be delighted to come," Aunt Bridget said.

"Excellent! I will send my carriage at half-past five for you, then, and I am certain of enjoying my time with you all. If you will excuse me now, I must attend to some odious matters of business."

Caroline and Aunt Bridget said their farewells, and they returned to the cottage in such humours that Aunt Martha wondered aloud if they had encountered the wee folk on their walk, for she had not seen Bridget in such spirits since Mr Hal Tilney had proposed marriage.

"If you must know, you old busybody," Aunt Bridget said, "Frederick invited us to dine with him. And you should have seen how he looked at Caroline!"

Aunt Martha could only sigh and call her sister the silliest romantic.

* * *

Caroline had found the supper to be very enjoyable, which was surprising. Mr and Mrs Tilney were as pleasant people as her aunt had said. Mr Tilney was clever and fond of the nuances of the English tongue, and Mrs Tilney was sweet and laughed often at her husband's quips.

Colonel Tilney was less charming in comparison, but Caroline saw no reason to hold that against him. Though he was two and forty, he was still in possession of his youthful looks, and he possessed all the charms of a good fortune, good sense, and a pleasant nature. He had looked at her often, only to admire, and he was as insistent as Aunt Bridget that she play them a song on the pianoforte.

If he was at all tempted to propose to her, she would certainly accept him. He had a fortune of five or six thousand pounds a year, and he was in great need of an heir since his first wife had passed away childless. He had no need for her twenty thousand pounds, but they would certainly not hurt her chances.

"How grand it would be," she heard Aunt Bridget say downstairs, "if my dear Caroline was to become Mrs Tilney! It would be so charming, Hal's nephew and my niece, joined in matrimony. I am quite certain that he is halfway in love with her already, and she is such an obliging, good-natured girl that she would not say no unless she truly did not like him."

"I cannot say anything against such a match, but you are getting too far ahead of yourself, Biddy. They have only known each other for a day."

"Oh, Martha! I know that you have never been tempted by any man, but you have never understood your own ignorance on such matters. A lady who has experienced male company knows about such things."

"Oh, Bridget, what have you done?"

"What do you mean?"

Caroline fell asleep to the almost-soothing sounds of her Aunt Martha scolding and her Aunt Bridget's ignorance. She was nearly pleased at Charles's fit of puerility now that she had the chance to become as well-settled as her sister-in-law had become, if not as well as Mrs Darcy. At least, no matter what, she would be far more comfortable than _Louisa_ and her silliness.


	3. Anne de Bourgh

I'm so sorry this took so long. I kept trying to write it and failing, and now I'm trying again and hoping it doesn't end so horribly. Next up is Mary King, and then Georgiana Darcy.

For the Georgette Heyer readers in the audience, if you've read _Friday's Child_, you will notice a slight crossover.

Anne

Thirty-five years in the world had not prepared Anne de Bourgh for life without a companion, paid or by choice. Mrs Jenkinson had passed on three years before, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh had decided that it was acceptable for her daughter to do without a companion since she was beyond too old to be thought of as more than a spinster.

Now that Lady Catherine herself was dead, the halls of Rosings were silent. Anne fancifully said that she could hear a pin drop to her cousin Elizabeth when she came with Elizabeth's husband and sister-in-law, Fitzwilliam and Georgiana.

"Yes, it is very quiet," Elizabeth said agreeably. "Perhaps you would prefer to come and stay with us. I know that Pemberley is rather cold in the winter, but Fitzwilliam was thinking of renting a house in Sanditon for the winter since our Anne has been so ill."

Anne was no fool. She knew that the offer was only given out of pity and that Miss Anne Darcy's brief illness had not given her parents more than a moment of worry. She only took a minute to word a polite reply before refusing the offer decisively.

Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth, and Georgiana soon left Rosings to the unnerving quiet they had dispelled with their arrival, but Anne found that she was beginning to enjoy it.

Hearing her own thoughts was a pleasure she had never afforded before, and she found that she had some good ones after all. These good thoughts led her to wonder whether or not others agreed with her, and she found herself writing to Fitzwilliam, asking him if he knew of any good philosophers. A forthcoming list of the men he himself read allowed her to explore the ideas she had come up with more carefully.

Disagreeing with men who could not argue their point did little to hinder her, so she had to come up with the counterarguments they would use and defend her point against them. Somehow she got to writing a great deal of those arguments down, and, when Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth came to visit a few months after his sister married, they proposed that she have her philosophical tirades published.

The success had been shocking. Her publisher had advised her to publish under the nom de plume of "A Lady," but after the reviews, the praise, and the quickness with which booksellers sold out of her volume, he amended his advice and said that she should go to London and become a part of the literati.

Had Anne not been mourning for the man who she should have married, her cousin Brigadier Fitzwilliam, who had died far before his time in Waterloo, she would have had her head turned by too many bucks, a few of them younger than her and a few older, but all of them interested in her money and her fame.

She had just begun thinking that when a young man was introduced to her notice by a mutual friend, Lady Wrotham. He was a part of a very fast set, and he began to pay her court. His name was Mr Ringwood, and he was seven or so years younger than she was. He was not as naturally intelligent as she was, or as wealthy, but he was sensible and not without money of his own. He thought that she was brilliant and one of the prettiest women he had ever chanced to meet, and she chided him for his romanticism.

He proposed one cold, windy day in April, and she refused him.

"But, Anne," he said, "I had thought – My friend Lady Sherry told me that you –"

"Lady Sheringham is not an intimate of mine, Gil. She is as romantic as you yourself are and not half as clever, despite her goodness. She does not understand the appeal of independence, and I am beginning to suspect that neither of you have read my books."

"Of course I have! They're good _ton_."

"I did not write them to be tonnish, Gil. I wrote them because they are what I honestly believe. If one is capable of independence without matrimony, why should she wed? The moment I became Mrs Ringwood, I would lose all claim to independence that I ever had. I would legally be your limb, and you could do what you would to me."

"I would never harm you, Anne. I love you."

"And I love you, Gil, but I think that you are not understanding my point. Love has nothing to do with this now. This is about practicality and, even more distressingly, money. I cannot accept any sovereign but my own self, and I thought that I had made that clear."

"You had," he said sadly, "but I had hoped that you would reconsider."

He left her in dejected spirits.

Anne returned to Rosings. The silence was much preferable to the whispers of London, where no one understood what she had done or why she had done it except Lady Wrotham, who could only sigh, and she had a desire to write a new book. She did not know what sort of book it would be yet, but she had developed a small interest in novels during her time in town. Perhaps she would write one, a light-hearted romantic book with a heroine and a hero unincumbered by philosophy and the legalities of marriage.

This time, though, she would write Elizabeth in search of recommendations.


	4. Mary & John

I apologize for the delay. I recently came back from a trip to Italy, and I did not write at all while there. After this, I will wander into the world of Georgiana Darcy and then into _Mansfield Park_.

July, 1815

Mary & John

Miss King and her ten thousand pounds had been living with her uncle in Liverpool for three years – from the age of eighteen to the age of twenty-one – when she received a call from an old friend from Meryton.

Mr John Lucas was not strictly her friend, but she had been on good terms with his sister Miss Maria Lucas and had been fond of Miss Emily and Miss Susan. She was happy to see anybody from Meryton, where she had been schooled from the age of twelve till her uncle requested her return.

Everybody had known that Mr John had fancied her, and with his older brother dead and his father in bad health it would have been a good enough match. But Mary had preferred Mr Wickham and his charming manners, and nothing had come of Mr John's infatuation beyond awkwardness.

The end of her engagement and her removal to Liverpool prevented Mr John from courting her, and she was not insensible of the compliment he had not intended by returning to her side three years later. Miss King, freckled and plain, had never inspired passion in anybody.

Captain King had not been home when Mrs Smith announced that Mr John Lucas was there to call on Miss King, and Mrs Smith had frowned when Mary said that it was fine, that she would see Mr John. She had a companion, a languid, middle-aged woman named Richardson. Mrs Richardson would be chaperone enough.

"Good afternoon, Miss King," Mr John said in the stiff way he had. Mary had always imagined that his mannerisms were because of the embarrassment of having poor Sir William and Lady Lucas, neither of whom were clever, as parents.

"Good afternoon, Mr Lucas. You have come a far way from Hertfordshire."

"Yes," he said, blushing a little. "I have recently developed business interests in Liverpool. – I recently was recommended to a businessman by the name of Hawkins, who lives in Liverpool with his family, and you were very much on my sister Maria's mind when I mentioned my trip. – She had wanted to come herself, but she had already committed herself to visiting our sister Collins in Kent."

Mary thought for a moment for the most appropriate response. She had enjoyed Maria's company, of course, and she saw no ill in continuing Mr John's attachment to her. He was his own man now, and he had no pretensions like his father before him. He would be a sensible, affectionate husband to her, and she could not think of another suitor she had who was not solely interested in her money. "If you would not mind visiting in the next couple of days, Mr John, I will have a letter for Miss Maria. – I am very angry with myself for having neglected my friends in Meryton, but, once the estrangement has occurred, it is impossible to heal the breach unless some event – such as your coming here – eases the way. I cannot think of a better correspondent, if you think that Maria would accept a letter from me."

"She would have no reason to deny it!" Mr John declared fiercely. He startled Mrs Richardson into one brief, shining moment of wakefulness that was immediately followed by a return to her previous torpor. "You were too good a friend to her for her to deny you any sort of recourse, Miss King; she would not have wanted to come and see you otherwise."

"That is very kind," Mary said, smiling in the winsome way the other ladies had mastered. Sometimes she suspected that she merely looked constipated. "But you must tell me of our old neighbours. I heard of Mrs Bennet's death, the poor woman, from Miss Eudora Long, and of course of Miss Long's marriage; but I scarcely heard of anything else. What of the Gouldings and the Harringtons?"

Mr John Lucas answered all of her questions to the best of his abilities, but he was a serious man who had never thought much of visiting and news; he could only tell her the little that he had absorbed from Maria and his other sisters when they chatted about it over supper.

"Has Miss Harrington married yet?" Mary asked carefully after hearing a good account of the way her brother Samuel was running his father's business. "She is such a pretty, pleasing sort of woman, and I do not think that her portion is considered unhandsome."

"No, she has not, but I understand that Mr Joseph Goulding, who has recently been granted a living by an aunt in Essex, intends to return and propose. He is a good, steady sort of man, so I see no reason for her to refuse him. – But Maria often tells me that I know little of the ways of women, and he is not generally thought of as handsome or as clever."

"She would be a fool to refuse Joseph Goulding," Mary agreed. "He is sensible and good-humoured – a true gentleman, of the finest class. Have you heard anything of Miss Penelope's marrying after her sister has?"

"I haven't heard a whisper," Mr John said, "but she is young yet. She is only twenty now. I believe that ladies are commonly given till they are seven and twenty until they are considered "on the shelf"?"

"Yes, that is the dreaded age. My uncle's brother-officers are all married, or so it seems, and their wives are all concerned for me since I only have six years to go."

"Certainly you have suitors enough for your friends never to worry for you?"

"I have no suitors worth marrying at present. My uncle has been very careful in telling me who I may encourage and who I ought to ignore. – None in Liverpool have met his approval and remained enamoured of me for long, I am afraid to say. It reflects very badly on me, does it not?"

"It reflects badly more on your callers than on yourself, madam. They should be denounced for their inconstancy – publically."

"Don't be silly, Mr John. If they are not interested in me, they should not be forced to remain with me in order to keep their reputations intact."

"I suppose," he said, but he still had a glimmer of passionate outrage in his eyes.

"My uncle will be home soon," she said as she glanced at the clock. "Would you care to stay and meet him? I have been horribly remiss in refusing to serve you refreshment, and if you say 'yes' I can mend my fault by asking you to stay for tea."

"I would be delighted to meet your uncle," he said, "and, if an offer of tea comes with, my delight can only be doubled."

Mary smiled. "Would you like to stay for tea, Mr John?"

"I would like nothing better."

Captain King surprised Mary by approving of her suitor, but he made it obvious that he did not think of her return to Meryton as a pleasant thing. "Who is to be the mistress of my house and my companion when my Mary is in Meryton?" he asked.

His niece came up with a plot that night. When Mr John returned to collect Mary's letter to his sister, he proposed and she accepted. His unmarried sisters – Miss Maria, Miss Emily, and Miss Susan – all came with to witness their brother's marriage, and Mary carefully observed their interactions with her uncle.

He appeared the fondest of Maria, who was only sixteen years younger than him, being the same age as Mary, and the Mrs John Lucas gleefully invited him to stay with her and her new family once she and John had returned from their wedding trip to Weymouth.

"There are delights a-plenty in Meryton," she said. "You ought to come and stay. Say you will, Uncle."

"I think I shall," he said, and Miss Maria blushed and smiled when she noticed Captain King's gaze had landed on her.


	5. Georgiana & William

Georgiana & William

Mrs Brandon was Mrs Darcy's dear friend, though she was eleven years older, and the two ladies had often spoken of Georgiana and her marital options with such pleasure that she feared disappointing them as much as she feared disappointing her brother.

Fitzwilliam expected that she would make a brilliant match, with a man with at least five thousand a year, and Elizabeth expected that she would make a love match, with a gentleman who she could respect and love as much as Elizabeth loved Fitzwilliam and as much as Mrs Brandon loved her Colonel. Georgiana wished sometimes, in the privacy of her chambers, that she did not have so many people who loved her and worried about her. Then it would be so much easier.

She was twenty-four that year, and she knew that everyone was becoming anxious. She had but three years before she became a spinster, and her brother could only continue refusing suitors on her behalf for so long before he found one who fit his demands and who professed to love her enough to meet Elizabeth's. That scenario was what kept Georgiana nervous during a ball thrown by Mrs Brandon's cousin Lady Middleton.

"Excuse me, Madam," a handsome, albeit uncomfortable-looking, gentleman said, "but you look quite pale. I know that it is the fashion, but are you ill? Is there something I could do in order to help you?"

"No, no," Georgiana said, flushing. "I am well. I am sorry to have concerned you."

The gentleman, who possessed a healthy tan that was more common amongst sailors than any other sort, smiled slightly. "You need not be worried about me, unless you wish to take pity on me for my silliness in coming here."

"How can you be silly, Sir, if the act is coming to a ball?"

"I will be frank with you, Madam, only because I find you to be pleasant company and because I am a little concerned that you will faint if I cease talking: I do not enjoy balls. That is not strictly true, though. I can be as good a man as any in a country ball, in Northamptonshire, where I know everyone and everyone knows me. It is the balls in town that give me a great deal of discomfort. I am no polished dandy like some here, and I do not possess half the dignity of every other man. I am but a sailor whose sister married a baronet, and I can only hope that Susan will decide to leave early and read her children a bedtime story."

"You must be pleased that your sister married so well," Georgiana said.

Her companion laughed. "I am indeed, but not for the reason you clearly suspect. Tom is my cousin as well as a baronet, and he has been kind to my sisters for as long as I can remember. I am the happiest that he fell in love with Susan, though, because sometimes I fancy that she is even more deserving than Fanny. I doubt that you have met my sister Mrs Bertram, so I will only say that Fanny deserves to be sainted. Susan has been treated much more ill, though, and she has managed to be much more – elegant, I suppose, but that is not the word I wanted. She is more _polished_, that is it. Susan fits in well wherever she is, but Fanny can only stand to be in the country. I think that she was in London once, and in her ten years of marriage she has never asked to return. Susan, though, has come once a year for at least a month."

He paused then. "I apologise. I am boring you."

"No! _I_ apologise. I was looking for my brother. I have not seen him since he danced with his wife and I danced with his friend Mr Keyes. I meant to listen to you, but I have difficulties focussing sometimes. You said that your sister Susan is perhaps more worthy because she is more polished and that your other sister prefers to live in the country. I must agree with Mrs Bertram. I do not enjoy the city as much as I enjoy Derbyshire."

"You are from Derbyshire then? The mystery of your person is close to being solved. I think that you are the daughter of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. Are you?"

Georgiana laughed. "No, but he is a cousin of mine. His grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters, both being the daughters of the third Earl of Burlington. And Hart is only six years older than I am!"

"But I was not so far off, if he is your cousin. What was the name of your worthy great-grandmother? It would be unfair if I was not rewarded for my guess."

"I suppose so," Georgiana said. "She was named Lady Juliana Boyle before her marriage."

"You will not tell me her married name?" She shook her head. "Then it is yours also. Do you happen to know if your cousin the Duke is in attendance tonight?"

"He ought to be. I am engaged to him for the next set," she said. She did not add that he was almost certainly there because he had become rather enamoured with her, much to the amusement of Elizabeth and the exasperation of Fitzwilliam, who had hoped that Hart would become attached to the youngest daughter of their aunt MacLeod and that Georgiana would be wooed by that aunt's son, who was almost as old as he was. Elizabeth was right when she said that, sometimes, Fitzwilliam had strange notions.

"There you are, Georgy!" Hart said when he came upon her. He took one glance at her companion and thought him insignificant. "Your brother has been looking for you."

"I was looking for him. This gentleman was kind enough to keep me company till I found him."

The stranger bowed. "Captain Price, at your service."

"The Duke of Devonshire, at yours, Sir. I must thank you for your kindness to my cousin. Georgiana is too good to too many people."

"I have no doubt of that," Captain Price said with a small smile. "She has been excellent company. Did you perhaps see Sir Thomas Bertram or his wife on your way over here? I have been looking for my sister and my brother-in-law for as long as this young lady has been looking for her brother."

Hart had the grace to blush a little at the knowledge that the stranger he had been rude to possessed some connections worth note, and he said, "No. I have not had the pleasure of seeing them the whole night" in a subdued tone. The music began, and her cousin said, "This is our dance, Georgiana."

"Oh, yes. Of course." She looked to Captain Price.

"Have a pleasant dance. Perhaps I might have the pleasure of the next set, Madam, or any other that you have free?"

"I am free the next." In fact she was not, but she intended to persuade her cousin Lord Malton to break his engagement to her so she might dance with the handsomer Captain Price, with whom she might have some hope of attaching herself. Naval captains did not make so little as to make them shocking marriage partners, and if Captain Price was successful enough he could have a larger fortune than her own. "Could you tell the Earl of Malton that Miss Darcy will have to speak with him another time as she has found herself too busy to speak with him?"

This was the code Edward had forced her to develop with him in case something like this happened, and Captain Price smiled at the knowledge that her name was Georgiana Darcy. She did not know that he had half a mind to think nothing of Lord Malton and to instead search for Mr Darcy and ask him if he might pay court to his younger sister.

A month later, Mr Darcy received a call from Captain William Price. He had expected it for some time, but he had not anticipated it being so soon. He was beginning to formulate the politest way to tell a man that he was not financially worthy of a young lady he was otherwise worthy of when the Captain began speaking.

"I know that I am not the sort of man you wished Miss Darcy to marry," he said. "I am not wealthy, or from an aristocratic background. My only relation worth note is Sir Thomas, and undoubtedly you have heard enough of him from my supporters in your family. I came here today hoping that you would consent after you heard my pleas."

"Please, plea."

Captain Price swallowed. "My fortune equals Miss Darcy's. We both possess thirty thousand pounds. If we invested in the five percents, that would give us an annual income of three thousand a year, which is not a pittance by any means. If I remain in good health, there is a chance that I will be able to earn even more and that I will be able to make my fortune larger than hers.

"I am of good character, which can be confirmed by my sister Lady Bertram and my friend Sir James Benwick. They have written letters that affirm that statement so that this process might go quickly and more smoothly than it would otherwise. Here they are.

"I do not think that Miss Darcy would enjoy it on a ship, so I have asked my sisters if they would mind if she stayed with them while I am at sea. Both of them have said that they would be delighted, and Elizabeth, who is not yet married, said that she would not mind either when she is. Miss Darcy and I have also discussed the matter, and neither of us thought that you and your wife would mind it either. We think, though, that we would begin looking into homes of our own when we have children. It would be odd if we asked our brothers and sisters to care for our children, we decided. Forgive me for my forwardness in discussing such matters."

"Elizabeth already told me that you had," Mr Darcy said. The gentleman's nervousness was beginning to amuse him, just like his father-in-law had promised. Little did the captain know that he had decided to give his consent the second he saw the banker's paperwork that confirmed Captain Price's fortune.

"Undoubtedly," Captain Price said. He swallowed again. "Sir, I really love your sister, and I would do my best to care for her as she deserves. I know that you had hopes of your cousin the Duke of Devonshire, but I think that he is a pompous arse who is completely undeserving of her. And I promise to try and avoid using foul language in front of her in the future. I haven't yet, but slips like that do happen."

"My wife has a cousin who is a sailor," Mr Darcy said. "He has managed to clean up his language now that he is married. I hope that I will also be able to say the same of you, sir."

Captain Price smiled widely. "Of course, sir! I – We have to be married soon, sir, since the admiralty is sometimes rather fickle, but there is no reason why we cannot be married in a month. If the banns are read on this Sunday, then it will be in four and twenty days. Is that acceptable, sir?"

"I will have to speak with my solicitor before committing to anything. I see no reason why he cannot be prepared for the first of May."

Captain Price was filled with effusions. He shook Mr Darcy's hand several times, each time with more enthusiasm than the last, and then it occurred to him that he ought to see Georgiana – pardon, Miss Darcy – at once! He ran out of Mr Darcy's study, and that gentleman fell back in his chair, laughing.

"Father?"

"Yes, Anne?"

His eldest daughter looked at him with a creased brow and gestured to her younger sister, who was looking at him with wide, brown eyes that were so surprisingly like her mother's. Anne looked more like him, but he saw more of her aunt when she looked at him with a charming mixture of confusion and consternation. "Libby and I overheard your conversation with Captain Price. Is he to become our uncle, then?"

"Yes, he is."

"Oh." She looked pensive for a moment and then said, "Do not tell Uncle Bingley, but I like the captain better when he is not being silly like he was a moment ago. He talks to us like he talks to you and Mama. Uncle Bingley talks to us like Mama speaks to your pointers."

He could not help but wonder why his wife found it necessary to talk to his hounds, but Anne had returned to Sarah Fielding's _The Governess_ before he could ask.


	6. The Crawfords

This is, I think, thus far the weakest of the stories. This really would have made a better novella or something, but I didn't have the patience to get beyond the first four chapters. So here it is in short form.

(P.S. I always thought that Fanny deserved better than Edmund, who didn't think of her until he and Mary separated.)

The Crawfords

Mrs Williamson had long been a leading figure in the fashionable world, having all traits necessary to live such a way of life. She was beautiful, clever, and always well-dressed, and she had only scandalous male relations. (Scandalous females in a family were horrifying and not to be even alluded to, as Mrs John Yates did not enjoy discovering.)

She and her husband were reasonably pleased with one another. He was handsome and sensible, and he was never dull. She was everything Mr Williamson's family and friends had expected him to marry. They had settled in London with absolutely no interest in each other beyond the shared pleasure that everybody's expectations had been met.

The only person who had been concerned about his sister's marriage was Mr Crawford, whose words had been quickly dismissed as being much too romantic and silly. He was still mooning over Mrs Bertram, his sister said with honest pity. Perhaps if was to marry soon, to Margaret Frasier or some other young lady with fortune and connections enough to please Mrs Williamson, then he would forget his previous love.

Henry thought that his sister was being perfectly ridiculous and told her so. He knew that she had not forgotten Mr Edmund Bertram, though she pretended to, but he would not hide his continued devotion to his Miss Price. (She would never be Mrs Bertram in his mind.) It was too late for him to improve himself and win her, but he could improve himself regardless in her honour.

For sixteen years he remade himself. He rarely visited his uncle and sister in town – and only then it was because he had a responsibility to them –, and he did his best to improve Everingham till it was in good of shape as he hoped his soul was. He attended services every Sunday and read the best moralising fare that he could find. He found half of it to be total nonsense, but he happened to remember Miss Price mentioning that she too did not enjoy reading sermons as much as she enjoyed reading poetry and histories. So he picked up a history and found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed it.

In the year twenty-five, he heard of Mr Edmund Bertram's surprising death from none other than an old friend, Captain William Price. He had fostered the friendship because he hoped to hear news of Miss Price from her older brother, and Captain Price had fostered the friendship because he honestly thought that Henry Crawford was not as bad as he had been made to appear by the unpleasantness with his cousin Maria.

Henry and Captain Price more often met by chance than by design, though, and Henry had spotted his old friend while he sat with Miss Susan Price and a young lady who Henry assumed was his young wife. When he and Captain Price encountered one another while fetching punch, Henry asked if poor Mrs Price had joined her husband in an early grave.

Captain Price had looked down at the black gloves he wore and said, "No, no. Mother is fine and well. She lives in Portsmouth still, but she has moved into finer accommodations with Betsy and her husband. I am mourning my brother Bertram."

"Has poor Bertram died, then?"

"Yes, this summer. He was caught in a sudden rainstorm while visiting ill parishioners, and he caught a chill from that. Well, the chill turned into pneumonia, and now Fanny is wearing weeds. She is staying with my brother John in Gracechurch Street now. Susan tried to persuade her to join us in Berkeley Street, but she would not be swayed. John and his wife live their lives like Quakers, so I think that might be more of a comfort to her and the children now."

Henry asked for the address at which Mr John Price and his wife lived. He doubted that Mrs Frances Bertram, or any relative who was not Captain William Price, would allow him to enter the sitting-room, but he could hope regardless.

The next day he called on Mrs John Price. He was informed by a maid that Mrs Price was not in at the present time, but Mrs Bertram would see him. He could barely hide his surprise and pleasure.

"Why are you here?" Mrs Bertram asked the second the maid had left. She was still beautiful, but she looked tired and her beauty had faded. "Sixteen years is a long time to hold onto an infatuation, especially as I doubt that you cared very much for me after all."

"I am a foolish man, Mrs Bertram. I was ruined by early independence and bad domestic example, but my crimes were my own and not my uncle's. I know that I failed not only myself but also you and my sister by my ill-considered actions, and I am willing to make amends for my sins to you."

"How do you intend to do that?"

He bit his bottom lip. "You will not enjoy hearing it, Mrs Bertram, but I have come up with a scheme. I know that you are in sad circumstances. Bertram could not have thought that he would die so young, and the seven hundred pounds a year he had would not have allowed him to save much regardless. You are certainly short on money, and your nature is such that you would hate to depend upon your friends and family for any longer than absolutely necessary. That is why I propose that – Well, to put it simply, I propose marriage. No! I insist that you do not speak yet, Mrs Bertram. I am not suggesting what you think I am.

"I do propose that you marry me, but you need not be concerned that I will expect anything more of you than I would expect of my mother or of an aunt. You would stay in the mistress's bedchambers, which I would never visit, and I would financially support you and your children. All I demand from you is your good society and your help in estate affairs. To the world, we would appear only as a married couple, but you and I would know that it is simply an arrangement made to repent for my sins."

Mrs Bertram frowned and said, "You know nothing of how I am now."

"You could not have changed much, Fanny. You were too good to be anything less now."

"I could continue to live here, or elsewhere Susan and my brothers have all offered me a place beside their hearths."

"You cannot bear the thought of being the poor relation again, can you, Fanny? I am offering you the chance to be the mistress of your own home and to have no greater demand upon you than that you entertain me sometimes with an account of your day." She looked tempted at the offer, so he added, "It is very lonely in Everingham, sometimes. Mary lives in town now, and I never could find another worthy enough to come stay there with me."

She looked crossly out the window. "I cannot agree to your terms, sir, without the advice of my sister and brothers."

"Do not be ridiculous, Fanny. William will support me, and neither Sir Thomas nor his lady thinks any ill of me. The only person who could be against you marrying me is your host, and I doubt that his wife would be at all pleased with him if he argued against you leaving for Norfolk."

"I have three other brothers and another sister, Mr Crawford."

He chuckled softly. "Richard and Samuel are both at sea, Fanny; William told me so last night. And no one would listen to Tom Price if what William refused to say of him is true. – That he has become like Mr Price but worse, for he does not have half your late father's tenderness or latent good-breeding. – I do not know any more of Mrs Lucas than that she lives in Portsmouth but, being so much younger than you, you cannot value her words of wisdom."

Fanny looked down at her black gloves. "I cannot marry while I am still in mourning."

"My offer will stand after you are released from your obligation to your husband," he said.

"What of my children?"

"I have always enjoyed the society of children, and it is not beyond me to hire a nursery governess to educate them and a nurse to watch over them. I would also be able to send them all to school when the time is right for them to go. They would lack for nothing."

"My daughter Fran – She has a dog named Alba, who she will not abandon."

"Alba is welcome at Everingham, Fanny, as you well know. Stop trying to find an excuse."

She swallowed. "I accept your offer, Mr Crawford. I apologise that you feel so obliged to your memory of me to do so, but I thank you for it."

"Consider _my_ gratitude, Madam, and think no more of it." He kissed her hand. "May I call on you again soon? I wish to meet your children and to speak more frankly on our arrangement."

"Perhaps next week, or the week after," she said.

"It will be a pleasure to see you whenever," he said, and he left her to her thoughts.

Oh, happy day! He thought.


	7. John & Peggy

John is the brother mentioned in _Mansfield Park_ as being "a clerk in a London office"; I took a leap and made him a clerk in Mr Gardiner's office. Peggy is the unnamed eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Gardiner from _Pride and Prejudice_. As was traditional in the Georgian Era, she's named after her mother "M". I took a leap there and assumed that "M" stood for Margaret, though it equally could have been "Martha," "Mary," or "Marianne."

John & Miss Gardiner

John Price was only a husband of a few months' standing when his sister Fanny came to stay with her three children, at his wife's invitation. He would not have sent such a missive himself, fearing the displeasure of a new wife when her sister-in-law came to stay. He should have known better.

John had known Miss Gardiner since he was a boy of thirteen and she was a babe in arms, brought to the warehouses by her father, John's employer, who wished to show his firstborn off to his employees. All the clerks were fond of the genial and clever Mr Gardiner, so they all said that she was going to be handsome girl and that she would break a few hearts when she got older. They could not know how right they were.

John was not the highest of the clerks, so he saw Miss Gardiner only a little when she was growing up. As he became a more trusted employee, he saw her more and more, and he eventually noticed that the fifteen-year-old young woman was quite pretty. He was not as bold or as charming as his brothers William and Dick, so he only said "You look very pretty today, Miss Gardiner," and returned to his rooms on Edward's-Street. He did not know that his comment would begin the stirrings of love in the young miss's heart.

Peggy Gardiner was beautiful, and everybody said so. Her uncle Bennet said that she reminded him of his poor Mrs Bennet, dead four years now, and his remark was followed by enthusiastic agreement by his four eldest daughters and her parents. Her aunt Bennet had been pretty enough to lure a gentleman into marriage when she was only seventeen, the mistress of four thousand pounds, and a solicitor's daughter. Peggy was not ignorant of her prettiness.

But Mr Price's passing, almost disinterested remark made her realise that he himself was not a plain man. His mother was a great beauty in her day, and he had inherited some of her handsomeness. He was tall, fair-haired, and had a build somewhere between slender and stocky; Peggy could not help but notice that he wore his clothes well indeed, and there was no praise that could be said for the cheapest tailor in town. It took all of three months for Peggy to declare herself wholly in love with Mr John Price to her sister Louisa, who did nothing but roll her eyes with all the irritation a thirteen-year-old hoyden can feel.

John continued to live in ignorance of Miss Gardiner's love, but his employer did not. Mr Gardiner did not think similarly to his brother-in-law Mr Bennet, and he thought that his daughter was sensible enough to know when she was in love and when it was only an infatuation. Privately, to his wife, he commended Peggy's taste, for he was the fondest of John, of all his clerks, and he thought that the boy could one day follow him as the head of the business. His elder son Ned had always been quiet and prone to serious thoughts, and when he had requested that he join the clergy neither Mr Gardiner nor his wife could discover a reason to stop him. He would soon be at Harrow, and then he would go study at St John's College. Jeremy, the younger of his two sons, was entirely preoccupied with the sea and the glories of the navy; he would not be succeeding his father. If Peggy married John, then he would gladly have the two them inherit his business.

Mr Gardiner should have prepared himself for a long wait. John Price was stubborn and extremely inexperienced when it came to women, having only experienced the laziness of his mother and the irritability of his sisters Susan and Betsy. Peggy Gardiner's sweetness and good nature was as unfamiliar to him as bison were.

This changed when he was thirty-three. His sister Susan, who was now Lady Bertram, had invited him and his employer's family to supper in order to see to it that business deals were made. (Her husband was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind sort of person.) Susan spent the evening looking from John to Peggy and then from Peggy to John; at one point she met Mrs Gardiner's eyes, and they shared a smile.

Susan followed this supper with a visit to John's rooms, and not even John's panicked explanation of the scandal that would follow a baronet's lady visiting a bachelor's rooms.

'Please do not be ridiculous, John. You are my brother. Now what is going on between you and Miss Gardiner? I am dying to have another sister-in-law. – Georgiana is sweet and elegant, but she doesn't have half of Miss Gardiner's spirit.'

'There is nothing going on between Miss Gardiner and me, Sue. She is my employer's daughter; that is all. We can hardly be called friends, even.'

Susan stood and bestowed upon him a knowing look. 'I cannot wait to write to Fanny and inform her of your upcoming engagement. Do not disappoint me.'

That was just like Susan, John thought as his sister left his rooms. She was elegant and domineering, a true prize for Cousin Tom; he needed someone elegant to take charge of his social calendar, and his lady must be equally controlling to make certain that he did not return to the bottle or the larks that had destroyed his youth. John, however, was sensible and Quaker-like in his dress and manners; he needed a woman who would lighten his manner.

That woman, he decided a week later, was Miss Gardiner. Since she was the daughter of his employer, he decided that the most appropriate thing to do was to ask Mr Gardiner first rather than proposing.

'It is about time that you noticed your own infatuation, Price!' Mr Gardiner said. 'I hope that you are successful, but I am not in my daughter's confidences. You will have to make your case to her.'

John nodded and stood to leave the room.

He was not an unworthy catch. His family was perhaps not excellent, but Peggy's cousin's illustrious sister-in-law had married his elder brother and his brother-in-law was a baronet; there could be no objection there, especially with Mr Price dead and all but forgotten and Mrs Price living in a large, fashionable house at Betsy's expense; a connection to his family would not be detrimental to young Jeremy's hopes of naval glory, either. John was not accustomed to thinking himself worthy of anything, but Susan said that he was handsome and sensible, which he understood to be positive traits when a woman was considering a man for matrimony. His future successes depended entirely on Mr Gardiner, and surely he would not leave his son-in-law without a means to support his own daughter.

This John thought, over and over, while he waited in the sitting-room for Miss Gardiner to come. Mrs Gardiner was waiting for him, but she seemed to understand that he had no wish to speak and kept up a quiet commentary on the weather, which he did not need to respond to, for six or seven minutes (or so it seemed).

Finally, Miss Gardiner and Miss Louisa entered the room. Mrs Gardiner declared herself desperately in need for some fresh air and commandeered Miss Louisa's company for the next half hour or so for a trip to the park. Miss Louisa's eyebrows shot up and she almost said something, but her mother smiled brightly and practically dragged her from the room.

Peggy was twenty-one that year, and it seemed to John that she had done the impossible and become even prettier than she had been when she was younger. He swallowed nervously.

'Miss Gardiner,' he began, because it seemed appropriate to begin as such. 'Your family has been very kind to me for the past twenty-two years, and I am grateful for all that they have done for me. You especially have been good to me, and I have always looked upon you and your sister Miss Louisa with fondness. – And yet it occurred to me only a few months ago, after the supper at Sir Thomas's, that you were a young woman – a girl no longer – and that you were beautiful and good and –'

Miss Margaret Mary Gardiner, twenty-one years old, was kissing Mr John Price, thirty-three years old, on the lips. John was at first bewildered but unresponsive, but then he was kissing her back. Eventually, they needed to breathe, and they pulled back.

'Does this mean that we are engaged?' John asked.

Peggy kissed him again, quickly and lightly, 'Yes.'

'I have to tell Susan.'

She laughed. 'I have to tell my parents, but I think that they know. – Louisa must be dying, though. We have surprised her. She was raised to think that a lady never should be left alone with a gentleman who is not her father or her brother.'

'Or her husband,' John added.

Peggy nodded. 'Or her husband,' she echoed, smiling.


End file.
